


Where you go, I will go.

by kapakoscheisigma



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Parents, Sickfic, Unhappy Childhood, parental anti-religious sentiment, parental homophobia, parental inverse snobbery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-10
Updated: 2012-04-10
Packaged: 2017-11-03 09:52:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/380097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kapakoscheisigma/pseuds/kapakoscheisigma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hathaway is awoken in the early hours by a distressing phone call. He choses to take personal leave with strict instructions not to tell his boss why or where he's gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where you go, I will go.

**Author's Note:**

> Where you go, I will go:  
> Where you lodge, I will lodge;  
> your people shall be my people,  
> and you God my God.
> 
> The Book of Ruth, Chp 1, verse 16

It was the middle of the night when Hathaway was awoken by a strange ringing. Groggy, half asleep, momentarily panicked in case it was a neighbour’s fire alarm, it took him a full five minutes to work out it was his land line phone, by which time the phone had rung off and rang again three times. Panicked, he grabbed his mobile. He always charged it, he had to, it was his work phone and he needed to be on 24 hours call. It was nearly four am, the only thing he could think of was there was a body and Lewis was calling him on the land line because Control couldn’t get his mobile. He’d be in trouble for that.

He stumbled off the sofa and into the bedroom. Really, he’d have to get two phones or a radiophone if this was going to happen again. And yet again he’d fallen asleep on the sofa and was cold and stiff!

He dialled 1471: number withheld. He stripped off his work suit and was snuggling under his soft, warm duvet when the phone rang again. Curiously, he answered it.

“Hathaway.”

“Mr. James Hathaway?”

“Yeah?”

“This is Ward Sister Burnley from cardiology. Your mother is very anxious...?”

“My mother?” snapped Hathaway, interrupting. He should have realised it was family; they only had the flat phone number and address, nothing more.

“Mary Hathaway of Lower Ridgeway Pass, Brightwell-cum-Sotwell. She is your mother? I do have...?”

“Yes. Is she alright? No, of course she’s not... that is, she asked you to phone, so...”

“She’s had a minor heart attack, Mr. Hathaway. We’ve kept her in for observations but we’re concerned about her long-term prospects, to be honest. She won’t settle as she is so worried about your father. She asked...”

“What? What’s wrong with my father? Can I come in and see her?”

“When did you last have contact with your parents, Mr. Hathaway?”

“Um...” Good question? Christmas before last? When he stormed out after being called every name under the sun by his father and told what a disappointment he was by his mother. “Look, can I come now or must I wait for visiting time? When is that?”

“We’re very flexible on this ward, Mr. Hathaway. Mary wanted me to send you around to her husband, but since you seem so confused and she is so distressed, perhaps it might be better is you came in now. I don’t think we will get her settled until this is sorted out, and it is imperative your mother is not distressed in any way.” This last bit was emphasized as if Hathaway were a stroppy, rebellious teenage boy, something he had hardly been!

**

She was thinner than he remembered, and looked so frail, dozens of tubes going in and coming out of her, monitors showing all sorts of lines that Hathaway hadn’t a clue to what they signified. She smiled thinly at him and held out her hand.

“Mum?”

“You were expecting someone else?”

“Mum!” he sat down and took her hand. “The nurse said you’re worried about Dad?”

“He’s at home alone. God knows what he’s doing, how’s he’s coping. I need you to look after him for me until I’m better.” She coughed and several of the lines on the monitor spiked.

“What’s wrong with him.”

“He’s had a stroke, and he struggles to walk. I had to move his bed downstairs and he gets angry. He has these sort of – doctor says they’re like mini strokes and his memory goes. He’s not the man he was, Jamie love, he’s a bit... he needs looking after. Please. Social want to put him in a home and if they do that – the boss is letting us stay on even though your Dad’s been unable to work for months...”

They had left Crevecoeur Hall to go to a private estate on the edge of the Chilterns, Head Games keeper. The owner was a former rock star of the seventies, rolling in money and determined to live the life of a country gent. He paid ten times over the odds for all his estate workers.

**

“’Oo izzit?”

“It’s James!” James called through the door. He’d been knocking for ages. “Mum sent me. Can I come it?” He banged on the door again. It was now just coming up to six in the morning. The morning chorus had started, sheep were bleating in the back field, the hum of the M40 grew louder as the daily commute for Oxford went past, Red Kites shrieked and a Chinook helicopter had risen out of Benson. He’d forgotten how bloody loud the countryside was. He longed for the relative peace of his side street of Cowley Road.

The door opened, a painfully thin greying, stooped stranger leaning heavily on a stick regarded him.

“Dad?”

“Jamie boy. What you doin’ here son?”

“Mum sent me. I said.”

**

That Hathaway was shocked was an understatement. The house smelt rank. Days old washing up was soaking in the sink, more washing up about the kitchen and house and mouldy food in the fridge and on the surfaces of the kitchen. The front room had a camp bed up in it and stank heavily of piss, shit and sweat. Dirty clothes piled the floor, along with cigarette butts and bits of half eaten slices of bread and biscuits. A bucket sat next to the bed full of dark urine. The sheets were urine soaked with added surprises of faeces and vomit.

“My God!” Hathaway stood in the front room hand over his mouth. He’d seen some things as a police officer but this was truly awful.

“Your Mum’s left me. Been a bit ill,” he Dad murmured, leaning on the wall.

“Mum’s in hospital Dad. She’s not left you.”

Horrified, James watched his Dad’s face screw up like a small child and begin to weep. “They took her away. There was sirens and ever’thin’.”

James had hated his father, truly hated him for the way he’d been treated as a kid, the way he’d ignored his suffering at Crevecoeur, way he’d ribbed him about his scholarship and his vocation, the way ever since he could remember his Dad would call him ‘his little fucking poofy girl’, his 'bloody stuck up, poncy git’ and ‘his uptight religious freak wannabe’ and more that that, the way his Dad used to cuff him and knock him about for no reason after he’d been drinking. 

However, now he realised that hate and love were part of the same thing and he put his arms and around his Dad and talked softly to him as you would a child, or a mentally ill adult causing problems on the streets, and helped him slowly and painfully up the steep cottage stairs to the bathroom and sat him on the toilet seat while he ran him a bath. Then, clean and washed and in clean pyjamas he put him to bed in his parents bedroom, after changing the sheets – fortunately there was one set of clean sheets – and tidying up. The upstairs was incredibly dusty but no more, apart from the bathroom which James tackled after he had seen his Dad to bed. His Dad was terribly confused about time and when or where he was, and when James told him it was night-time he just fell asleep.

**

“Personal leave Ma’am? How long?”

“At least a week.”

“Without telling me! Why?”

“It’s personal, Inspector. You maybe his immediate superior but his request came through HR to me and it is personal. Valid and personal.” Innocent smiled. “Don’t worry, he’ll be back. You’ll just have to manage without Boy Wonder for a while, won’t you?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Lewis sighed.

“Close the door on your way out. This will give you a chance to catch up on those personal assessment reports on you team, won’t it?”

“Ma’am.”

**

Hathaway had hardly sat down in over 12 hours. He’d cleaned and cleaned and cleaned, stopping only to occasionally vomit and drink water, until all the smell of human waste and rotting food had gone. He did seven loads of washing and drove to the nearest village with a laundrette to tumble dry while he shopped for a week’s groceries. He ran up and down the stairs all day, answering every quavery cry of ‘Jamie! Boy! Where are you? Don’t leave me!’, taking his Dad to the toilet, fetching him food and drinks, helping him eat as his right arm, like his leg, hardly worked. His voice, too, wasn’t the strong, loud, broad Oxfordshire voice of his father, rather some quieter, slurred, shaking version of his voice.

At gone six, shaking with exhaustion, after phoning the hospital for a progress report – they wanted to fit a stent and that meant surgery, which they were afraid in her current exhausted state, Mrs. Hathaway was not yet up to – Hathaway sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a fried egg sandwich and a pad and pen, writing:

‘Get Advice – need stair lift, occupational or physiotherapy, some kind of care package? Not care home. Sheltered Accommodation? Council? Housing Association? Can’t stay here indefinitely, tied accommodation. 

What will Mum need? OT herself?’

He put his head in his hands, wondering where he could go to for advice without breaking his promise to his Mum and phoning social services? He went off his food and coffee.

His head snapped at the sound on banging. He ran out of the kitchen down the narrow passage to the bottom of the stairs. His Dad, half dressed in his Sunday best suit was at the bottom of the stairs.

“Dad! DAD!!! How far did you fall? Come on. Let’s get you up.”

“Who are you? You’re not my Jamie, he’s a poncy, posh little boy. Where’s Mary? Want Mary!”

**

There were wheelchairs parked in the main entrance to the John Radcliffe II. Hathaway just took one. A security guard scowled so he just flashed his warrant card. It was harder getting his Dad out of the car than when he got him in, but eventually he got him in the wheelchair and pushed him to the lifts and up to his Mum’s ward. They were still as disgustingly obsessed and in love with each other as he remembered. He must have been an intrusion, his birth and life. At least, that was how it often seemed to him growing up. He went to talk to the Ward Sister and get a coffee from the cafe. Nothing was open so he sat drinking disgusting machine coffee and reading up on carer’s charity websites on his Blackberry, making copious notes.

When he looked up an hour had gone by. He noticed a familiar figure sitting on a sofa drinking tea and eating a Kit Kat, wearing dirty fatigues and a tired expression.

“Dr. Hobson. Keeping late hours?”

“Some of us have to sergeant, it’s not all glamorous murders and the hunt for clues, sometimes it’s boring routine, and there was a car smash today, on the M40, I’ve been at it since three o’clock, three from the accident site and two more sent me from A&E. Bloody bleak, really. Still, what are you doing? Not at work?” Her eyes raked over his cargos, t-shirts and fleecy hoody, giving a good impression of one who was undressing him in her imagination. He felt himself blush.

“My mother’s had a heart attack, I’ve brought my Dad to visit – he’s had a stroke so I’m having to, well...” to his horror, tears welled up in his eyes, and before he realised it he was sat down next to the good doctor, her arm around him, describing all the horrors of what had become of his childhood home and his parents. Hobson was patient. Said little, listened and then fetched him chocolate and more coffee before patting him on the back and saying she had to get back to work and wishing him good luck.

**

Once at home the being awake since four o’clock in the morning operating on virtually no food was getting to him. He tried to get his Dad back to bed but his Dad was obsessed with it being nine in the morning and being late for work. Hathaway was exhausted with very low blood sugar and he shouted. His Dad yelled back and lashed out with his stick and fell over. Sighing, Hathaway went to help him up. His Dad had a moment of clarity of who was caring for him.

“Don’t you touch me you bloody little poof!”

“Dad. You can’t stay on the floor. Please.”

“Stuck up holier than thou nob. What you doing here anyway?”

“Come on Dad...”

“Look, you shitty fairy...”

“Dad...” Hathaway knew he was whining like a child himself.

Just then there was a strong knock at the door, the kind Hathaway was used to giving, the police’s knock, bringing bad news.

“I ain’t nicked nothing...” his Dad suddenly protested, looking panicked, as if he suddenly remembered that as well as devout, posh and gay, his son was a bloody pig.

“I didn’t think...”

“Mary!”

“The hospital would phone. We’re in the loop. The police wouldn’t...”

The knocking started again. Hathaway took a step forward. His Dad reached out and grabbed his arm, “Don’t Jamie...”

Hathaway idly wondered what his Dad had hidden here for his friends before his stroke.

A third knock. And a voice. A gruff, Geordie voice. “James! You in there?”

“It’s my... it’s my boss,” Hathaway said, looking at his Dad’s hand on his wrist. His Dad released him and with trepidation Hathaway opened the door.

“James? Thank God. How are you? Why didn’t you tell me man?”

“Sir? I don’t want them to...”

“Don’t you bloody Sir me. I’ve been worried sick. Don’t you dare disappear on me again, I’ve been doing my nut...” He pushed past James into the cottage.

“Dad fell...””

“Right then, let’s get you up Mr. Hathaway. I’m Robbie Lewis. I’ve got Indian takeaway and beer in the car. Let’s be having you. Your son looks done in.” Lewis winced slightly as his back took the strain, but without grumbling he helped Hathaway senior up the stairs and to the room James pointed to. “We’ll be back with some food.” He closed the door and turned to James. “Where are we sleeping, then, you need bed? You look close to fainting. You can’t do it on your own.”

“Sir... Robbie... I didn’t want...”

“I know you didn’t. But I’m here now, aren’t I? Best make the best of it. I had leave owing so I’ve taken a week.”

“But...!”

“Everyone thinks I’m visiting our Lyn. If needs must; she’s prepared to cover. James, pet, did you think I’d leave you alone with all this?”

James felt tears well up in his eyes. He looked away. “Through here.” Lewis followed him in the room his sergeant – his boyfriend – had spent half his childhood in. Due to the sheer length of the teenage James he’d been bought a double bed for his fourteenth birthday, which was a relief. Boxes contained Hathaway’s childhood, the bookcase still full of fantasy, literature and theology, along with a shelf of old fashioned compact cassettes. It was if his parents had frozen his room from about the age of sixteen. It was weird, but it would keep.

“Right James, you go have yourself a long soak in the bath, I’ll fetch the food and me gear from the car and dish up your Dad some and make some tea. The beer’ll keep another day, I don’t think alcohol’s a good idea the state of you, do you?”

“How did you...? Did Hobson...?”

“I’m a bloody good detective, me. Best remember that if you ever decide to cheat on me.”

“I could never! I love you.”

“Well, then, that answers your question. You think I’d let you do this alone?” Lewis repeated. “Oh, away with you, have that bath,” he said gruffly to the first sign of exhausted sniffles.

**

Later, tucked up in bed with Lewis, stuffed full to the brim with takeaway curry and Ben and Jerry’s Double Chocolate, Hathaway showed him his to do list and all the notes he’d made from the carers’ websites.

“You’d wait forever for all that. We’ll look for somewhere to private rent, and I’ll pay for the stair lift. The old man could do with one of those scooter things, too...”

“So he can go to the pub and the bookies!” Hathaway snorted, and then added, stricken, “I can’t expect you to pay for all that...”

“Your family is my family. Anyway, didn’t you know? I’m secretly rolling in it! Morse left me one third of his estate, and that was huge, him having no family and that jag and the beer and music being his only vices. If you move in with me you could use what you spent on your rent to pay for care yourself, couldn’t you?”

“Move. In. With. You?”

“Aye. Needs must, coz of finances, you could say, or else we could come out and if Innocent doesn’t like it she could get you transferred. Or promoted. About bloody time if she did.”

Hathaway snuggled into Lewis and yawned widely. “I’ll think about it all when I’ve had sleep.”

**

They slept in late and awoke to a litany of curses, swear words and homophobic insults. Hathaway’s Dad stood in the doorway, leaning on the doorframe and his stick, staring at the man in bed with his son.

“Um, sorry Mr. Hathaway, I should have made it clear last night what I am to your son. I gathered from what I heard you call him you knew?”

“Knew he’s a poof. But I thought he was too bloody religious to do anything about it. You’re bleedin’ my age!”

“Not quite. Are you alright sir?”

“Pissed meself again, ain’t I?”

“Dad...” Hathaway murmured sleepily from somewhere under the duvet.

“I’ll sort it,” Lewis said, “if that’s okay Mr. Hathaway?”

“Better call me Jim if you’re me bleedin’ son-in-law, ain’t you!” 

Lewis felt Hathaway’s smile against his chest rather than saw it. “Um, yeah. Of course. I’ll come get you sorted, shall I?” He had to climb over Hathaway to get out of bed, as he did so he noticed the lad’s shoulders shake, but from laughter or tears he didn’t know. Bit of both? Relief, he supposed. Looked like he was accepted, anyways. That was the main thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you asparagusmama for betaing and encouraging me to post this when I said I would give up.


End file.
